Author
Gail Koger
I was sixteen years old when my father took me to live with Uncle Ben. Why? Because General Saul Jones needed him for a special project in the Middle East. Dad would be gone for an entire year, and no, I could not come with him. When I asked why not? Dad simply said, “Your uniqueness would draw too much interest, Lexi.”
My uniqueness? What the hell was he talking about? Okay, I was tall for a girl, I had honey-gold eyes, and my copper skin color was unusual, but my mother had been of Hispanic heritage. I was telepathic like my mom, but so were the Jones’ family. I had some telekinetic abilities, and I could heal minor injuries. Also talents shared by the Jones family. The only unique power I had was that I could knock the shit out of people using just my mind. For some reason, Dad was afraid of what would happen to me if General Jones discovered my combat talent.
After mom died in a car accident, my father became a bit paranoid. Okay, he lost his friggin’ mind. The world was suddenly a dangerous place, and I needed the proper skills to survive in it. My kindhearted father morphed into a Seal Team drill instructor. I was home schooled and, on the weekends, instead of going to the mall, I was taking bomb making classes and learning how to become a sniper. Hooyah! By the time I was fifteen, I was an expert in hand-to-hand combat and weaponry. Hooyah! Dad had me play video war games to learn battle tactics, critical thinking and how to persevere in the face of overwhelming odds. Like these evil aliens were going to invade us? Pleeze.
Uncle Ben lives in a converted underground bunker in the middle of the Nevada desert. The nearest town is two hundred miles away. No schools, no malls, nothing but sagebrush and sand. To say I wasn’t happy would be an understatement, but Dad was adamant. I was staying with Uncle Ben. His bunker could withstand a nuclear blast and the copper, iron oxide and graphite in the soil blocked scanners. Yep, that would keep those pesky aliens from finding us.
The only time I had met Uncle Ben was at my mother’s funeral. I was twelve at the time and all I remembered about him was he had wild, white hair, and smelled funny.
The man waiting for us at the bunker doors was in his fifties and looked nothing like my father. My dad was tall, muscular and quite good looking.
With Uncle Ben it was hard to tell what he looked like. His bushy beard hid his features. His hair stood out from his head in a wild halo. Adding to his unkempt appearance was the stained white overall he wore. I really didn’t like the calculating expression in his eyes as he studied me.
“This isn’t going to work Dad.”
Dad took my suitcases out of the trunk of our car. “You’ll be safe here.”
“I’ll go crazy with nothing to do,” I snapped.
Shutting the trunk, Dad kissed my forehead. “You’re Ben’s new lab assistant.”
“I’m his what?”
“You’ll learn a lot from him.” Dad said and carried my suitcases toward the bunker.
I threw up my hands in disgust. “I want to go to college and study to become a veterinarian.”
“Ben uses rabbits, mice and such in his experiments.”
My eyes widened in alarm. “What kind of experiments?”
“He’s building a portal.”
Consider me confused. “A portal that does what?”
“It instantaneously sends a test subject from one location to another by converting them into energy,” Uncle Ben answered.
“Kinda like that old TV show’s transporter?”
Uncle Ben grimaced. “There are some similarities.”
“Do all your test subjects survive?”
Ignoring my question, Uncle Ben led us to an elevator and placed his hand on a sensor pad. The doors slid open. “Your quarters are on level two, Lexi.”
“Okay. How many levels are there?”
My uncle stepped into the elevator. “Three. My laboratory is on level three and access to it is restricted.”
“Restricted? Why? Do you have an evil alien stashed away?”
Dad placed my suitcases inside and hugged me tightly. “Behave. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
“You’re just going to drop me off and leave?” The sense of utter abandonment shook me.
“General Jones has a jet standing by for me at Nellis Air Force Base. The situation in Iran is escalating.”
My dad the diplomat or should I say secret agent man? “Don’t get dead. I can’t lose you too.”
“I’m hard to kill.” Dad’s gaze settled on his brother. “Keep her safe.”
Uncle Ben nodded. “I will.”
“Have you destroyed the specimen?” Dad demanded.
“It has been neutralized.”
My psychic senses buzzed loudly. Shit! My uncle was lying through his teeth about the specimen. Whatever that was.
“I love you,” Dad said and stepped back.
“Wait Dad! We need to talk.”
The elevator doors abruptly closed and down we went.
“Stop the elevator! I need to talk to my father again.”
“No.”
I glared at Uncle Ben and enunciated clearly, “I.”
“Need.”
“To.”
“Talk.”
“To.”
“My father.”
“Now!”
Uncle Ben’s cold gray eyes fixed on me. “You have no idea what your mother was, do you?”
“What are you talking about?”
He released an exasperated sigh. “Your mother was an alien.”
“So?”
“From a planet called Tanith.”
Shit! My uncle, the mad scientist, was loony tunes. “Mom was from Guadalajara, Mexico. She had her papers and wasn’t illegal,” I corrected.
The elevator doors slid back, revealing a narrow metal tunnel. I stepped out and looked around. The tunnel stretched about two hundred feet in each direction. “Take me back to the surface.”
“Your father is gone, and cell phones don’t work out here.”
Damn. I eyed my uncle. “How do you communicate with the outside world?”
“I have a satellite phone, and no, you may not use it.”
First chance I got, I was stealing his car and heading for Vegas. “Where do I put my suitcases?”
“The door marked storage,” Uncle Ben replied.
“Oh, whoopee.” I wheeled my suitcases over to the door and reluctantly opened it. The room was about twelve feet wide and ten feet long. It contained a single bed, a small metal desk with a lamp and a chair. One wall held several shelves and a metal pole to hang your clothes on. “Living the dream,” I muttered under my breath. I put my suitcases in front of the bed. “What’s the plan?”
“I’m going to show you aliens really exist.” Uncle Ben gestured to the elevator. “It’s time you knew the truth about your heritage.”
Pasting a big smile on my face, I stepped inside. “Can’t wait.”
“Did your father tell you how your mother died?” He placed his hand on the sensor pad and the doors closed.
I gave him the evil eye. “Car accident, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me that’s a lie too.”
“A Coletti hunter was trying to capture your mother, and she ran out into traffic to get away from him.”
“And where is this infamous Coletti hunter now?”
“Dead. Your father killed him before General Jones had a chance to question him.”
Was he calling Dad a murderer? “Why would he do that?”
“To hide the fact you’re a hybrid.”
I exhaled a long breath and tried to ignore my churning stomach. That would explain my uniqueness.
The elevator shuddered to a stop and the doors whooshed open.
Noisy honks and quacks echoed down the corridor.
I frowned. “Do you have a flock of geese down here?”
“Are you ready to face the truth?”
“Show me what you’ve got.” If any of this was true, Dad had a lot of explaining to do.
“Follow me.”
Insatiable hunger, rage and the need to kill hit me suddenly. I grabbed my head and stumbled to a stop. What the hell?
“You are a psychic!” Uncle Ben exclaimed excitedly. “Maybe you can communicate with it.”
“It?”
He placed his hand on a sensor pad and the door slid back. “The alien.”
The breath left my lungs in an involuntary gasp. In a metal cage was a tall, hairless, skeletal humanoid with a mouth full of sharp metal teeth. Its three blood-red eyes were devoid of any speck of humanity. Metal spikes protruded from its milk white skull, and it wore a filthy red uniform. “What is that?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
The alien honked and quacked at me.
Huh? It was trying to communicate with me. I reached out mentally. A barrage of nightmare images spun through my mind. These monsters lived to eat. They destroyed civilizations, leaving nothing behind but rubble.
Horror rolled over me. He had stumbled upon our solar system and discovered human flesh was a delicacy to be savored. As soon as he could get to his communicator, he would notify his commander, and our world would be harvested.
“Can you understand it? What does it want?”
The weird thing was, I did understand him. How was that even possible?
“What is it saying?” Uncle Ben demanded.
“His race is called the Tai-Kok. He’s a scout and he wants to be released.” Nausea rose in my throat. “We are nothing but food to them. The minute we let him out of that cell; he’ll notify his ship, and they will attack.”
“Fuck that.” Uncle Ben picked up an oddly shaped weapon and fired.
A red energy bolt missed the Tai-Kok by a good foot but vaporized the bars.
Moving faster than I thought possible, the loudly squawking Tai-Kok charged out, grabbed Uncle Ben by the throat and lifted him off his feet.
“Stop!” I yelled and stuck the monster’s mind over and over again until he released Uncle Ben.
The monster staggered over to a worktable and grabbed a funky looking cell phone. With a triumphant honk, he pushed a button.
Uncle Ben scooped the weapon off the floor and shot the Tai-Kok. He dissolved into a million fireflies.
The cold fist of reality hit me. Well, damn. Those evil aliens were going to invade Earth. “He summoned their fleet of spaceships.”
“There is a way to stop them, but it’s dangerous,” Uncle Ben said.
Up next is undisciplined catalyst, a coletti warlord story